# What crazy expensive items today used to be cheap? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 12, 2008, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705 "2008-06-12T16:54:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2008, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/21 "2008-06-12T18:02:06Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto] It can be done - it’s just that most people don’t want to actually do it. And living like our parents did goes a long way toward making this happen. [/QUOTE] Yeah, my former boss made less than I did and supported his family of 5, mortgage in a not-cheap suburb, and two cars as well. But you have to be willing to make the sacrifices that allow it to work. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2008, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/22 "2008-06-12T18:03:15Z")
[QUOTE=Lemur866] Hand tailoring. [/QUOTE] Labor in general. Look at all the fancy gingerbread on old Victorian buildings. All the old architectural details on older buildings – carved cornices and suchlike. You used to be able to affordably hire trained artisans and masons to do that kind of work and handymen to maintain it. I don’t know the exact costs, but even middleclass households could afford maids and handymen. Now labor is extraordinarily expensive. Get someone in to do some work on your house and look at the cost of material vs the cost of labor. Not a lot of people are going to be throwing up scroll sawn fretwork onto their new McMansions. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2008, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/23 "2008-06-12T18:05:51Z")
Water. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2008, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/24 "2008-06-12T18:16:36Z")
[QUOTE=KneadToKnow] Yeah, my former boss made less than I did and supported his family of 5, mortgage in a not-cheap suburb, and two cars as well. But you have to be willing to make the sacrifices that allow it to work. [/QUOTE] This can be an interesting discussion. I’ll open another thread in IMHO so as to avoid further hijacking. ---
**Author:** ![nivlac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3bc359/32.png) [@nivlac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nivlac)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2008, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/25 "2008-06-12T18:35:15Z")
Breakfast cereal. Hey, it’s just grain and sugar. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2008, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/26 "2008-06-12T18:54:35Z")
Hookers, usta pay less than $10/throw! Now they want all getout! ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2008, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/27 "2008-06-12T19:09:26Z")
[QUOTE=Nobody Special] … (I)s there anything that used to be ridiculously cheap but is now prohibitively expensive? [/QUOTE] Manners. Being polite and courteous to others was dirt cheap growing up. These days it’s so expensive that someone saying “please” and “thank you” costs them an arm and a leg so they don’t bother. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2008, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/28 "2008-06-12T19:10:54Z")
[QUOTE=Folly] Lobster. Prior to the 20th century, only eaten by the poor in the US. [/QUOTE] Also, some other foodstuffs besides lobster. I think oysters used to be given away in the San Francisco of the ninteenth century. And I thought I read that truffles used to be a lot cheaper than they are now. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2008, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/29 "2008-06-12T19:23:53Z")
College education? OK, maybe it was never \* cheap \* , but I’m pretty sure the institution never would have got off the ground if each year’s tuition/board had been equal to a family’s average income. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2008, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/30 "2008-06-12T19:28:47Z")
[QUOTE=Mongo Ponton] Beach front property in a lot of the country. Farmers didn’t want it because even if you could get something to grow, it was likely to get washed away in a storm. Outside of a few spots beach front tended to be very rural. Often slave quarters were stuck down by the water. [/QUOTE] No kidding! As a young boy my family lived for a few years on Tybee Island near Savannah GA. My mom was a school teacher and my father was a gas station attendent. Today a home on Tybee would be worth at least ten times what it was worth forty years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Engineer\_Dude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9fc29f/32.png) [@Engineer\_Dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Engineer_Dude)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2008, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/31 "2008-06-12T19:34:23Z")
HD-DVD players. You’d think used ones would be dirt cheap, now that Blu-ray is the obvious winner. But no; it’s actually [quite the opposite](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=hd-a3) ---
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2008, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/32 "2008-06-12T19:39:08Z")
[QUOTE=Sunspace] Middle-class housing in North America. Okay, maybe ‘cheap’ is relative. But my father was able to support a mortgage, a car, and a family of five on a single income, that of a dispatcher at the gas company. I have a comparable job and income (allowing for inflation over the passage of time), but at roughly the same age, I’m not even _close_ to being able to afford a similar house, let alone the house, the car, and the family. Maybe the late fifties and early sixties were an unusually-favourable time for housing affordability that we nevertheless of think of as ‘normal’. My great-grandfather lived in what was basically a walk-up apartment in London. My grandparents lived on farms, before moving to the city. [/QUOTE] But your mom probably did a _lot_ more planning and scrimping with the food budget (“tuna casserole AGAIN?”), you didn’t have computers, mp3 players, more than one TV (or any TV at all), multiple cars, get new furniture because you’re tired of the style and not because it’s actually broken, clothing was mended (and socks were darned) instead of thrown out, you didn’t have cable, cell phones, netflix, internet, etc etc. ---
**Author:** ![Public\_Animal\_No.9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Public\_Animal\_No.9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Public_Animal_No.9)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2008, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/33 "2008-06-12T23:19:50Z")
[QUOTE=Sunspace] Middle-class housing in North America… [/QUOTE] You should also take into account house sizes these days. In general, houses are much bigger than they used to be. Lots tend to be smaller, but what we tend to consider “starter” homes are quite a bit larger than what I grew up in (2 parents, 3 kids). ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2008, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/34 "2008-06-13T00:27:22Z")
[QUOTE=ralph124c] Hookers, usta pay less than $10/throw! Now they want all getout! [/QUOTE] That goes under the category of skilled labor, no? ---
**Author:** ![7218](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/7/a5b964/32.png) [@7218](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/7218)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2008, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/35 "2008-06-13T00:28:42Z")
Comic Books. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2008, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/36 "2008-06-13T02:24:48Z")
[QUOTE=Folly] Lobster. Prior to the 20th century, only eaten by the poor in the US. [/QUOTE] What caused the change? ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2008, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/37 "2008-06-13T03:03:17Z")
[QUOTE=HeyHomie] What caused the change? [/QUOTE] Some genius realized he could dupe rich folks into eating giant red bugs by calling them a ‘delicacy’ and charging 10x the price. Seriously, you people _do_ realize you’re basically eating a giant cockroach, right? ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2008, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/38 "2008-06-13T03:46:02Z")
How about movies? King Kong (1933) cost $670,000 to make and you could watch it for a nickel. King Kong (2005) cost $200,000,000 to make and $10 or so to watch. ---
**Author:** ![Folly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folly/32/3219_2.png) [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2008, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/39 "2008-06-13T04:01:16Z")
[QUOTE=HeyHomie] What caused the change? [/QUOTE] Availability. When giant lobsters swarm beaches it’s only fit for the poor. But once it becomes rarer and lobster fishing is hard work, suddenly it becomes a tasty delicacy. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2008, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/40 "2008-06-13T04:14:29Z")
First-Class postage. When I was a kid in the '50s, it was 3 cents. A ride in a NYC subway. Used to be a nickel; how many bucks is it now? White Castle hamburgers. I think they were something like 12 cents apiece. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705.md?page=3)